Sparrow
by Reikanishy
Summary: If you cage a bird with unseen bars, it will never know it's been locked away from the world. Elricest, lime.


**Sparrow**

_by Shy Himura_

_*** * * * ***_

Series: Full Metal Alchemist

Rating: R

Pairing: elricest (Al/Ed)

Warnings: Incest, romance, angst, sap, lime

Type: One Shot

Disclaimer: I own: 1 Rusty Car, 1 Sexy Boyfriend, 3 Annoying Muses, and a goddamn partridge in a pair tree. Obviously, I don't own Full Metal Alchemist. Though I won't say no to anyone willing to buy it for me…

Dedications: To Meonmini, with love and kisses and tender thoughts of Perth. Love ya! (She actually got me to write this…me expect cave art, cave art, cave art! *Grunts, rolling around on the carpet* Ah noes! Beetles! _;;;)

Summary: And all Al could do was stand, feet braced. Heart ready for the lap of guilty waters, as shame raced through him like an ocean wave. Brushing tender little wings against his bruising spirit, like there was a forgotten sparrow that lay dying inside his chest.

_*** * * * ***_

"Or what, you'll take _his_ side again?" Ed was snarling, cornered; a golden idol who had been torn from his pedestal, cast at the feet of the person he thought (Knows, he should _know_ by now) loved him the most, regarded him highest. And all Al could do was stand, feet braced. Heart ready for the lap of guilty waters, as shame raced through him like an ocean wave. Brushing tender little wings against his bruising spirit, like there was a forgotten sparrow that lay dying inside his chest.

"But…Ed…it was a bad idea, to cross those lin-"

"It would have _worked_, Al, I know what I'm doing!" his older brother whispered harshly, striding swiftly, shadow lively along the wall, patterns shifting in jerky striations as he thumped a metal fist into a gloved palm. "And for you to belittle me like that…in front of _everybody_…!"

Al took a step back, bringing his arms across his chest – not so much in a gesture of defiance, but as a ward for the pain starting to twist along his spine, curling in secret corners of his body. It was always the same. Always the same dull, cutting ache that made his eyes tear, even tough he knew he was right. Biting his lower lip, backing away, he couldn't help but feel monstrous as he saw the shine in Edward's glimmering eyes. "_Ed_…!"

"And to be put on probation, simply because you said that my theory, which I'd spent _month_s on, was _wrong_!"

"And did you _really_ want to open a Gate, right in the middle of Headquarters, and see how many people it sucked in before you regained control of it!?"

A shocked stillness, as alabaster skin paled further, and hands fell limply to thin sides as if a string, already pulled so taut, was cut. "What?"

Stroking his long hair out of his eyes, daring to step closer to his dazed lover, Al took a moment to gather every ounce of strength he could, injecting it into his voice – and still it trembled, with the humiliation of shaming his Big Brother, of not being able to take him aside and explain properly.

"I noticed it…just as you were touching the array. Double negatives, parallel, touching Mercury…and _off_, somehow. Like the Gate…it hurt to look at it." He shrugged helplessly, as Ed glared out of the window; watching the vicious breeze tug at the curtains open window. The faintest of starlight, green and luminous and gilding Edward's skin like silver fire, made his heart jump into his throat. "You…" He sighed, twisting his hands together, looking down as Ed turned to face him sharply.

"You could have gotten hurt," he whispered. He heard that miserable little whine as Ed's breath his passed his teeth, a sure sign he was surprised and upset. And pissed of as a wildcat who had just had his dinner stolen. But that was ever present, ever hated, and forever known.

There was this tension, always, which divided the two even as it brought them closer together. The simmering tension of lust, of some sort of stained love that closed the distance between them; it frayed nerves, made them argumentative and bitter. Most days it was as soft as a barely remembered dream, festering quietly in their eyes, arching between them as they closed the distance with physical mortality.

But that didn't mean that he loved Edward any less for his horrendous temper, for his oft well meant mistakes and divided nature. It simply made liking him difficult at times…and he _had_ been so _harsh_, when a whispered word in his brother's tiny ear should have been enough.

And in that lies Edward's true anger, and Al sighed as he gathered the tense man into his arms, gently stroking Ed's muscular back as his chin rested on an angular metal shoulder. He shuddered. Squirmed as he always did, sharp ribs brushing against Al's own, growling softly as he raised his hands to ward off the dreaded contact that he had convinced himself for so long was wrong...

"I love you, idiot…I didn't want to ever see you get hurt." Ed pulled back sharply, outrage defined in every line of his twisting body, and Al brushed his lips over a high cheek bone as he brought him back, sheltered him, for that was all Al could offer him.

"My fault. Handled it badly. Forgive me?"

The smaller alchemist bit his lip, anger still dividing him through and though, tugging helplessly on Al's white shirt as he narrowed his eyebrows. "You didn't have to-"

"I know." The words were breathed out over pale, bow shaped lips, and Edward shuddered again; but this time edging closer, tugging less forcefully and with more abandon. Al knew that this was probably a stupid idea, trying to seduce him _now_…but he was so beautiful, all anger and righteousness…

"I could have handled anything that-"

"I know, love." His ghosted his lips over nearly inhumanly perfect skin, catching Edward's breathy gasp and locking it away inside his heart as Ed started to squirm again; but closer, oh Gods closer and it was sweet and terrible, how the guilt made him want to appease so many little things…

"Please-"

"Yes…" And then there was hot breath and welcoming slick flesh, of lips opening and closing furiously as Edward channelled his anger in the only way he knew how; turning it into frenzied _not-thinking-just-feel _as he shoved all of it away.

Al knew what he was doing.

He did the same.

The guilt tempered their love, made it burn like bitter tears, and he sobbed brokenly as Edward slithered his arms over him like a snake. Hated himself for wanting that lithe body so much, even as he desired it more than the air he breathed.

Kissing and moaning, sliding against each other and falling boneless onto the bed. Clumsily stretching tight and trembling muscles, hard length in his throat and poking against the remorse found there, taste sweet and divine and incredible as his lover trembled against the cotton sheets. So fast, the hands on the tiny clock on the table beside them moved, time a slippery measure of their own building haste as Ed leaned back, inviting Al in, anger still smouldering in his ochre eyes.

And then burying himself in sliding, bucking heat, screaming out his pleasure as his brother wailed out his own. Feel every tiny particle of his soul and seed and love leave him in searing warmth, into that closed body, into that marvellous body which wore his brother's smile and the tears they had shed between them. And then softness. And then some sort of lethargy and happy tiredness that mocked the need for sleep.

"I'm sorry…" And Al meant it, and Ed knew it, and eyelashes fluttered against his arm as Ed curled more into him. All he could do was shelter him. Steer him, sometimes, if he couldn't see the way forward.

Be there for him…always.

"Humph. Well, we'll do show them all next year. Revaluation bores the shit out of me anyway."

And then Edward smoothed his sweaty hair off his forehead, littering his temple with the tiniest of kisses. "Don't do it again." _'Thankyou.'_ "Asshole." _'Love you._'

And Al knew he was forgiven.

* * *

The End


End file.
